


Our Aftermath Comes in Pieces

by ahhhhrexa



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Character Study, Drama, FC Barcelona, Football | Soccer, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Match, Post-Valencia CF Match, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:59:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9178624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahhhhrexa/pseuds/ahhhhrexa
Summary: Not everyone reacts to an event the same way.Some lash out in their frustration by throwing things against the wall.Others fume more quietly by themselves in insecurity.There are some who instead of feeling anger hold fear or sadness.This is a story about how some of the players felt after the incident during the match against Valencia CF.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired about what happened during the goal celebration. I couldn't help but be struck by how Messi reacted, and just everyone else. It's interesting and yeah. This is a 3-parter.

Luis Enrique finds it a bit hard to keep a straight face during the post-match conference. Inside there’s this anger bubbling so close to the surface that if he isn’t too careful it could come out and lash at any of the people around him. These questions given to him aren’t any help with keeping his anger in check. They either are too boring, too stupid, too antagonizing or all three combined. Each time he hears them he wants to hurl the sponsorship bottles in front of him at their faces. 

Looking out toward every journalist he can already see the articles that would be posted about his team. “Lucho Out” would be plastered all over the Twitter-sphere. Headlines will shout about awful play and bad coaching in one sector of Spanish media while the other would cry foul play and something being rigged. There’d be more damnation rather than criticism to the way his players reacted from the incident to the post-match. The press will sound off absurdities and self-righteousness, and point out every wrong done by him and his men. 

He’s on autopilot in this room. The flashes of cameras and the clicks of video starting to film invade his eyelids as he answers the questions. He keeps his face stony, calm, and in control. He says that his team made him proud. He says that Andres' injury is unfortunate, and that he may be gone for weeks. He says that the Mestalla and its team are challenges. He talks but he doesn’t invest in the words that these knowledge or gossip seekers try to get from him.

The relief within him is strong once he gets the word from his associate that the meeting is over with. He tells the people in front of him that he hopes they have a good day. He means it entirely despite his distrust in them or his dislike for their occupation. He stands up quickly, nodding a bit when they return him with their own “good days” and walks quickly out intending to go back to the locker room to check on his players. 

He hopes everything isn’t completely destroyed.

-

Neymar looks in the mirror at where the water bottle hit him. He pulls his eyelid up and the lower skin down to look deep into the eye. It’s a bit red, but there doesn’t look to be any swelling or bleeding. He can still see so that’s good news. This isn’t the worst thing he’s had to deal with pain wise, but it still sucks. 

He still hears things crashing against the walls and people yelling. He knows his teammates are frustrated, deep into emotions instigated by how tough the game was, how they were treated, and the terrible injury to their captain. He was with them for a bit; trying to calm down Lio, trying to assure Andre that everything will be okay, but the noise was too loud. 

He needed to getaway just for a bit. Besides, the emotions within him were difficult to deal with too.

He believes he didn’t have a good game. There was more that he could do. He wishes he could have made more accurate passes, defended better, and he wishes he could have scored. He guesses he could give himself credit for not giving up even when things looked bleak, that he remained persistent in his play, which led to the penalty, but that’s not enough.

That isn’t the only thing that’s bothering him. His captain was injured, his other teammates subjected to cruel words and to have objects flung at them, and his personal trials with the Spanish fans themselves continue. 

How many times has he gotten complaints about how he plays? How many times has he gotten word that the press mocks him for apparently showing off too much? How many times has he heard crowds, bar the Camp Nou faithful, whistle at him because he uses too many flamboyant tricks? 

Too many to count, he thinks. Too many times does this happen and yet no one gets punished but him. He is to blame for the antics of part of a crowd. Those who tackle him unjustly, those who scowl at him and throw insults down at him don’t get punished, and if by chance they do, they get off with a slap on the wrist. He’s the one that gets condemnation from the press, from the league just for playing only way he knows how. By doing this they are implying that his joy and the way he expresses his joy is cumbersome, out of line, not proper for the way football should be. 

He shouldn’t be bothered by it. He always says that he’ll stick to his guns and stick to the way he knows how to play. He means it. He really does.

But that doesn’t mean the words thrown at him don’t sting. 

-

Paco Alacacer sits back alone as his new teammates unleash pent up energy and emotion around him. He tugs at the substitute jersey he has on, rolls his neck, and pulls it off of him. He holds the shirt, staring at it curiously, and wonders about the choices he made to get here.

Valencia is his home. 

He was born in here in a place called Torrent. He learned how to play ball here. He understands the language and uses it often. He is a product of the Valencia CF youth system. He has learned so much from them and it’s thanks to them that he was able to get to the first team of Valencia, and to get to Barcelona. 

His affection for the Mestalla and its fan hasn’t changed. He remembers how they cheered when they had him as their player. He knows almost every song that they sing and all the jokes they like to tell. He finds the team, the Bats, to be a team of great history, and of great passion. 

He expected some if not all of the fans to be upset that he left for Barcelona. The headlines read, “Paco Alacacer to Barcelona to stay on the bench.” That’s what the people believed and therefore, that’s what the people told him. He knew that playing games in Barcelona would be tough. He has the lauded MSN as the front three and taking their spot even for just one game would be difficult. 

He thinks about the behavior of some Valencia fans. They whistled at him. He even got a sunflower seed bag thrown at him. He didn’t get cut or feel in pain by the bag. All he felt was a mild pinch, but that was it. 

Should he be surprised at the animosity he received? He can’t necessarily blame them for feeling the way they do. It’s tough to lose a player to a rival, especially one like Barcelona. Not only that, the ref wasn’t particularly consistent in anything either, which added more chaos into the game. 

If he had been put into the game, he would have played harder than before. He would have defended, passed acute angles, and if fate had it for him, he would have scored. No, he wouldn’t celebrate. That’d be rude to Valencia and his people. But he wouldn’t have regretted scoring; it’s a part of how of he is. He’s a number 9 and nines like to score goals. 

He wonders, though, if he was naïve to have high hopes that the people wouldn’t whistle at him when he returns to their ground. A part of him held on to the idea that maybe he wouldn’t be scowled at or frowned upon when he steps fit into the open air, on the pitch that he knows so well. 

Thanks should be given at the fact that the whistles weren’t as loud as the other whistles to his teammates like fellow former Valencia player Andres Gomes. Perhaps it was fortunate that he never got on the pitch, that he didn’t have to deal with the nonsense of a seemingly incompetent ref. 

All he got as backlash was a bag of sesame sides thrown at his chin. It didn’t hurt and he didn’t try to say something back at the fan that threw it at him. He just smiled and sat down in his seat. What words could he say? How do you snap back at a fan that you remember yourself fighting hard to please?

Leaving home for Barcelona isn’t a mistake, but it’s left its mark on him. 

-

Luis Suarez is known all over the world for being an angry person, for having a deep seeded rage like molten lava within him. People like to say that its so tumultuous inside him that one wrong move could make the lava seep through his skin and that he’ll lash out like he did those other times by biting rival players.

That’s where people get it wrong though. Yes, he has his anger, but that’s not the prominent and dominant emotion inside of him. It’s a reaction, a creation of another far stronger feeling that takes control of him no matter how hard he tries to fight it. People don’t seem to get that the anger is a defense, a wall that he uses so that this other more potent emotion doesn’t consume him. 

Fear has that way with people. He’s seen it growing up in Uruguay. It’s like a toxin in the air, enters the lungs of the young, and scratches them from the inside, never poking through skin, but clearly causing a whole lot of pain. 

He isn’t immune to the fear. 

There are so many things that can accelerate it, mobilize it, and feed it even. As a child, it was hunger and not knowing if they’ll have food on the table the next hour. It was playing football on the streets and trying to avoid getting beat up by some older, much bigger than him kid. It was learning Sofi was heading off to Barcelona without him, probably off to meet someone else, someone smarter, more handsome, just – better than him. 

The thing with fear is that it can either freeze you up, make you immovable, so tied down by the weight of it that you miss out on things. It once made him shut down, close himself off from other people, and much as he tried to focus on happy thoughts, the fear pushed it away like forceful waves hitting the shore. 

Or it could inspire other feelings, almost just as strong as itself, and drive you nearly mad; so mad that you can’t keep still. That’s where anger turns up for him. Anger comes from the fear and he’s used that anger to reach his goals: putting food on the table, helping his family pay the bills, reuniting with Sofi.

But at this moment anger never surfaced. 

The anger isn’t his to hold at the moment. Some of his teammates seemingly have stripped it from him. He can see it in their eyes; they’re wild and cloudy like a storm. He sees tense muscles, clenched jaws, and raw words escaping their mouths. He hears the curses and the wild sarcasm. He feels as if the bottles and other items hitting the walls were striking his own body. 

This isn’t his first time seeing his teammates angry. There have been a couple of matches where they all got frustrated. Each player had their own moments in a match or two that caused them to be disappointed in their performance, which made them angry. They all have had issues with questionable calls and dangerous fouls. 

All these irritations never came to this level. The emotions would normally be just below the line. It was never crossed because either one of the coaches or one of his teammates would find a way to bring things into perspective and calm everyone down. The anger would just hit the ceiling. Never actually blowing the roof apart. 

Today is different. 

The anger is so visible to his eyes. It’s the steam that fills the room that contorts with the image a player sees of another player. It’s the colorful curses that ring out in several different languages. It’s the objects being thrown at the walls and the ceiling, breaking and falling back onto the ground. It’s how he sees how fast every player’s heart is pumping. 

He almost feels envious. He knows anger; he has lived with it for nearly all his life. But it isn’t here with him now. It is strangely absent within him. He sort of misses it. Because anger is easy to deal with, people can easily help him with it, but now it has decided not to show up. 

He’s left with only the fear. 

-

Marc Andre ter Stegen has been in hostile stadiums before. He’s heard the insults hurled down at his teammates with Gladbach while playing other teams in Germany, but never quite like this. None of the tirades are directed at him as a person, but he isn’t stupid. He knows the words are sent down to every player including him. 

The heat of the game can do a lot of things to players and to the fans. He chooses to not let it affect him especially during the game. He has a job to do and that’s to make sure that he doesn’t allow goals in. And when he did allow those two goals, he worked his butt off to make sure no more goals beat him. 

There were moments where it flashed in his mind the things he’d like to do. He’d like to run over at one Valencia player and slide tackle them for fouling Andre like that. He’d like to get into that players face that tackled his captain Iniesta. He’d like to yell and join Messi when he celebrated toward the Valencia FC fans. 

He didn’t break because he is a professional. But that stone cold wall he put up was hard to make last long. He felt it about to crumble when he heard the chants and found out a couple of fans yelled out “Subnormal” toward Lio. The word’s implication made his skin crawl and he hopes that it didn’t affect the Argentine. 

He got close to breaking when he saw this teammates fall back. He saw someone looking like Ney and Luis on the ground, Busi was holding up something, and he could see the mister and all those with Barca jumping to their feet, waving their arms, in complete distress. 

Even now, hearing his teammates curse and scream, watching them pound their fists and throw their gear around didn’t make him break. He is one of the few in the room to be calm. He’s not throwing anything nor is he complaining. He’s just standing up against the locker room watching the events unfold. 

But does he feel anger?

Yes, he does. 

There’s this indignation that he feels. After all the abuse, after all the mean things thrown their way, they got to win, but only to have some fan throw bottles, lighters, and what-not at them as they celebrated. In what way was that okay to do? In what way would those missiles not hurt anyone? 

He feels the anger, not new to him; rise up within him as he thinks back to the recently ended game. He can still hear the noise from the crowd; their spiteful sentences inflame him. His hands are shaking and it’s difficult to take off the gloves. 

He wants things to be made right. He feels there should be apologizes from the other team, from their fans, from the RFEF, from Tebas. He wants justice for his teammates. 

There has to be something that can if not fix this at least act as some sort of balm to the wound.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucho arrives in the guest locker room to find chaos. It’s a little less than it was before he went to speak to the journalists, but it is chaos nevertheless. There’s music playing so loudly that he feels the beats hit his body at an alarming force. Underneath the music, there’s shouts coming from one side of the locker room and cussing coming from the other. There’s clothes everywhere, not neatly piled up into a laundry cart as it should, but all over the floor, on the seats, hanging around like rags that have been used to clean up the dirt.

 

He spots Juan Carlos talking with the other members of his staff. His arms are moving wildly, side to side, making hand gestures aplenty as his compatriots listen to him with red faces. The conversation looks one sided, but he knows them well enough to see the responses in the other men’s faces. He knows they’re talking about the game and how so many things could have been prevented, and how today could be a lesson for them all.

 

He decides to do a head count of his players. He wants to know they are all inside the locker room, away from the Valencia team, and far away from the press that could and would try to exploit the collective feeling of anger from the team for their own means of the most papers.

 

To the farthest from him, he sees Lio and Masche shouting out expletives as they grab whatever is within reach of their hands to throw at the wall. If the items don’t break, they pick it up and throw it again. They don’t flinch when the loud bag roars out nor do they hear anyone that speaks to them.

 

Watching the two, he sees Marc leaning against his locker, eyes alert on the two Argentines. The surprisingly calm Luis, who’s leaning against the wall that the two are throwing things at, joins him; he has a fearful look on his face. It doesn’t look to be directed at his two teammates but at something hidden. Both men hardly flinch or react in anyway as the forward and center back let out their rage.

 

Samuel is looking at the doorway to the showers and nothing else. His face is filled with concern, arms folded, and his foot tapping impatiently. His fellow Frenchman Lucas is holding on Andre’s arm. They both look a bit confused; both appear to feel their fare share of anger, but not to the extent as some of the others.

 

Paco is sitting down by his locker, shirtless and sweating. He looks lonely and lost. There isn’t anger there, but uncertainty. Lucho wonders how it is to face home like this. He notices that Sergi is watching him from across the room. The young man’s feet are poised to move and his lips are twitching as he listens to Busi and exchange words with Jeremy.

 

The young Carles is sitting next to Denis, both wide eyed, as they watch Masip be extra animated with one of the delegates. Aleix is next to them, on his phone, shaking his head at either what happened or something else. Lucho thinks about how he hasn’t used the man to play, but he quickly shoves that thought aside.

 

No other thought about his still enraged players or the annoyance he felt about his players being attacked come to his head when he realizes that there was no sign of Neymar. He searches the room again, trying to find clues as to where the Brazilian could have gone. He made orders that no one should leave the safety of the locker room and yet here he was missing one of his players.

 

He pulls out his phone, ready to call security, and he has the scolding speech he’ll give to his forward. He dials out the number of the their co-head in security, but before he can press call he catches Samuel picking up the towel that Ney likes to bring and walking through the doorway into the showers.

 

Understanding what he sees, knowing the budding closeness of the two men, Lucho deletes the numbers and returns his phone to his pocket. He spots Andres, sitting by himself, on the bench near the emergency exit, looking disappointed and glum. He looks ready to leave, appears unable to hear what’s around him, and his hand is wiping away something off his injured leg.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

Lucho looks down at the hand that’s gripping his shoulder. He can imagine how many lines there are on his forehead right now. He’s feeling a mixture of many things ranging from anger to disappointment to exhaustion.

 

The game didn’t go out as he had planned. Valencia was a lot tougher than he had originally figured. The captain of his team has gotten injured thanks to a questionable foul. There are the inconsistent rules from the ref and the man’s inability to control the game. He’s got the exhilaration of that last minute win to only get the fear over his players when he sees them separate too quickly from the group huddle.

 

To think that the game against his good friend Pep and Manchester City had been exhausting! This game takes the cake for sure. The day was packaged to give him more stress and give him near heart attacks as well. If he didn’t have any grey hair growing before, he’ll surely have some now.

 

“Could be better,” he replies tiredly.

 

It could be a lot better.

 

-

 

Ney sits down on the shower floor, strips off his jersey and throws it aside. He blinks his affected eye over and over, letting the tears wet his eye like an ointment, and he keeps the back of his head placed against the wall.

 

Maybe they threw the bottle at him because he instigated them. Maybe in his emotions after dealing with verbal abuse and a tough game, when he yelled back at the crowd, he had been the catalyst for the fan to throw a bottle at him and his teammates? Maybe if he hadn’t been so reckless all these feelings being poured out by his friends wouldn’t be here? Maybe if he had restrained himself the incident wouldn’t have happened?

 

Does that give the right to the fans to throw bottles and lighters at him and his teammates? They were being loud, verbally hostile, and filling the stadium with electricity as the game went on. Is it wrong to say a cuss word back at them in the moment of celebrating? How can he incite a crowd to be violent when they already were angry and nearly two years ago they had thrown objects at them before?

 

He bangs his head against the wall twice. He wonders if the club will defend him and the others, or will they be lax with it like they had been when people starting to foul him more and more, like they had been when he, Masche, and Lio were dealing with their tax problems? Could he trust the board to protect them?

 

He’s thankful that the only thing thrown at them was plastic bottles, a bag of sunflower seeds, and lighters. There could have been glass bottles, things lit on fire by the lighters, and other, more sturdy and hard types of food. He thinks back to that River Plate vs. Boca Juniors game Masche once shown him. He’s thankful that the Valencia fans didn’t pepper sprays them as they celebrated or went through the tunnel.

 

They were lucky it was just plastic bottles and lighters.

 

Ney is surprised when a towel hits him and covers his face. He pulls the cloth down and recognizes it’s the one he brought from home. He holds it gently with confusion.

 

“Can’t wait to get out of here?”

 

-

 

Paco finds himself comparing the differences between Barcelona and Valencia. He starts with the obvious that both Barcelona and Valencia share a similar language besides the required Spanish. They both have a Catalan dialect: Barcelona has “Catalan” while Valencia has “Valencian.” He understands, despite the similarities in language, that there’s a difference in the political movements. Call for independence in Valencia is low compared to the recent surge of that call in Barcelona.

 

He thinks about the lessons he’s learned from going through the ranks of Valencia’s academy. He thinks about how players like Messi, and Iniesta are exemplary examples of their own upbringing from Barca’s academy. He thinks about the much richer Barca is compared to Valencia, and how much tougher it is to get minutes in Barca’s first team than Valencia’s first team.

 

Even with the disputed ending to the match and the charged emotions, he still considers the first team players of Valencia as his friends. Some of them were upset with him when he gave them the news that he was leaving the club. Despite this, every single one gave him their congratulations and sent him their well wishes. He’s glad that many have kept in touch with him with phone calls and texts

 

He cherishes those friendships even more now because he has yet to find solid ground at Barca in regards to friendship besides with Jordi Alba. They rest of the men are friendly toward him and they laugh with him, but none seem to have connected to him. He sorely wishes Jordi were here with him right now, giving him directions and some optimism.

 

He sits here thinking about whether or not he’ll ever find his place. How long can he go on like this? In a few months he wonders if he’ll score for once, or if he’ll play enough. Will he have formed friendships with the others? Will he hear Camp Nou chant his name? He doesn’t know, and he refuses to complain too much; he doesn’t want to prove himself wrong, and he definitely doesn’t want to prove his critics right.

 

He shakes his head at how uncertain it all is when suddenly he feels another leg beside his. He doesn’t look at who the person is, but relishes in the warmth it gives him. For a second, he thinks it’s his friend of seventeen years, Jordi Alba, but that thought is crushed when he hears the person speak.

 

“I don’t like seeing you so down.”

 

Paco doesn’t like either, but that’s how he feels. He left home to a new land and right now he feels like he doesn’t belong to either.

 

-

 

Luis figures that the fear will paralyze him. He feels it in his bones; there’s an ache in them. A cold sweat develops as one of his hands become numb and his vision starts to blur. He heart keeps switching from being super fast to unbearably slow. He wishes he had the anger to keep him steady, to make him move.

 

If there’s one thing he appreciates about having the anger, it’s that it helps him feel alive, like he is out of the well of darkness and not fading into nothing. As much as burden and detriment the anger had been, it’s also like an anchor to his already swaying ship of a life. He tries to tell himself that if he doesn’t speak up or get out of this funk that his livelihood will fall apart. He tries because the anger is better than the fear.

 

More sounds of bottles hitting the floor violently enter his ears. Like a jolt to the heart, it tears part of him away from the siren call of fear. The noise is loud and he almost covers his ears, but he thwarts himself by stepping a bit forward from the wall and crossing his arms. He looks ahead of him to see his Argentinean friends still angry, still abusing plastic bottles as their outlet for that anger.

 

He’s worried about his two friends. What he knows about these two, as Argentines, they tend to have an incredible capacity for anger. There’s a fury within them, not unlike his, that pushes them, but usually they are able to keep it under control. Today is not the case for it is apparent the emotions have past their limits and their hearts have quickened. Lio and Masche are breathing in indignation and exhaling fury.

 

Lio is no longer pale. His skin fully flushed, bright pink highlighting his skin, and his eyes are filled with torment. Masche is darker, his cheeks don’t redden, but there’s steam-like vapor near him indicating the hotness of his breath. Both haven’t stopped yelling since they came through the tunnel. They curse and scream, and throw things at the floors and the walls without a care, without fear for any consequences.

 

It comes to mind that he should help them. He knows that no one should dwell in his or her anger for too long, less it gets out of control and burns someone, but even worse, the anger could become addictive.

 

He knows that Masche walks the fine line between sobriety and addiction when it comes to anger. Every time he puts on a jersey, the heat lingers under his finger tips and each time he gestures at a player or ref during the game Luis can see the starting embers of a fire about to come alive.

 

Lio, on the other hand, has kept his anger behind walls built when he was young. For a long while, he hardly ever let his temper get the best of him. There were some little one-offs every now and then, but actually outbursts rarely occurred. But ever since last season, things started to change. The anger bubbles up past the skin far more quickly than before, it grabs the man by the cuff, and pushes him into actions like holding a man’s throat during a friendly.

 

Sensing that both are close to their breaking point, that place where they’ll sink deep into themselves into a place where reaching them would be nigh impossible, he steps forward toward Masche and into the Argentine’s line of sight. He sees the way the man twitches his fingers and anticipates the bottle. He dodges it, by a hair, and hears it crash against the wall.

 

Feeling determination, knowing he needs to find a way to help Masche and in doing so could probably help himself, he quickly walks closer to Masche, making sure they are face to face and within a half a space from one another. He looks over to Lio quickly and finds Marc pulling him away and out toward the side door that led to another hallway.

 

Focus solely on the older Argentine, he pushes back as much of the fear that he feels and gathers up some courage. He sees Masche’s body shaking, eyes hard as he looks back at him though Luis suspects that his companion doesn’t actually see him. He puts his hands on Masche’s shoulders and grips them tightly.

 

“That’s enough,” he says, silently urging for Masche to stop shaking.

 

-

 

Like carefully contained animals, seemingly tamed by discipline and rules, Marc ponders at the remarkable way his teammates transformed in the past minutes. An unfamiliar, new kind of rage digs into them and makes them howl in frustration at what has occurred. The change is especially potent in two Argentines. They have done nothing but curse and snarl as they whip their arms back and attack surfaces with plastic bottles and whatever else they can get their hands on.

 

Things have luckily calmed down a bit with the others. The only other loud noise, shouts to be more precise, that aren’t the two Argentineans, come from the speakers, which are playing a mix of hip-hop and rock. The others have gone into their own little worlds. Some look to be deep in though, no words being spoken except for the lines on their faces. Others are still speaking, low in tone, with one another, all at least once glancing at two of their four captains ongoing outrage.

 

He’s lost count at how many things Lio and Masche have thrown against the floor and the walls. He only knows that they’ve failed in breaking at least five plastic bottles. The rest of them have split in many parts, some have large holes, and there’s liquid on the floor. The amount of bottles seem never ending, he wonders if they just pick up old ones, and throw them again. He’s thankful that besides the bottles they’ve only thrown articles of clothing and towels instead of cleats and footballs.

 

He’s comfortable, in a way, with the anger coming from Masche. That emotion is more likely to be coming from the center back. It is like the man has a deep pocket full of rage that he can reach into whenever things don’t go to his liking. Usually those moments have to do with bad calls, hostile fans, and bad tackles especially when those reckless challenges are directed to his countryman Lio.

 

Lio’s anger isn’t necessarily uncharted territory for him. He’s seen glimpses of it in his first season at Barca. Marc remembers seeing it during that infamous spat between the mister and him. He knows that it evolved in his second season with the biggest sign being Lio grabbing the Roma’s player’s throat. But this here, in this third season, this is something out of ordinary, and he knows that he’s not the only one that thinks this.

 

It is like Lio has absorbed everyone’s anger, in how they demonstrate it, and combined it with his own. Like the ferocity found in Luis’ eyes during turbulent moments are in Lio’s eyes, and the hard aura that Masche has is mirrored exactly by Lio’s aura. As if unveiled, Lio’s anger is no longer restricted and it’s now free to extend its fiery hands toward the outside world.

 

The worst part of it all, beneath the anger, Marc can sense the underlying feeling of helplessness that’s in Lio. It’s in the way the man curses, though loud and rough, the tone breaks as if letting out a strangled breath. He sees it in the way Lio’s arm winces as he pulls it back to throw the objects against the wall.

 

Fearing what could happen if the anger dissolves into helplessness without intervention, Marc rushes forward, eyes only on Lio, though he notices Luis going to Masche, and he wraps his arms around Lio’s waist from behind. He ignores the ensuing struggle from the older man, tightens his grip, and nearly drags Lio with him toward the door, and out into the other hallway.

 

He lets Lio scream into his ears, able to detect the hitch in the man’s voice, and says over and over again, “Let it go, Lio.”

 


End file.
